


landlock

by PunkHazard



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 16:58:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2659559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know how things get when an inland newbie joins up." Easygoing, good-natured Tendo grimaces, about the closest expression he ever gets to outright disgust. "This guy's... a little more extreme than usual."</p>
            </blockquote>





	landlock

Few things in the Hong Kong Shatterdome are more calming for Mako than a noisy Kwoon; it usually means the Weis are there. She comes in to the sight of Jin sitting on Hu's back, youngest brother pinned in a vicious armbar. They've been moving away from Muay Thai in recent months, larger kaiju with longer and more flexible limbs requiring a slightly different approach than before. Cheung, squatting on his haunches at the edge of the mat, looks up first. 

"You wanna go, Mako?" he asks, canting his head toward a free spot in the arena, giving her a sly grin when she drops into a crouch next to him. "They won't be done for a while." 

"Not right now," she answers slowly, leaning slightly on his arm while she distracts herself watching the younger Weis grapple. 

He gives her a strange look, but doesn't prompt her again. Jin and Hu break apart when Hu finally taps himself out, both of them rolling to their feet and ambling over to greet Mako. 

"Doing okay?" Jin wrinkles his nose, then points at her face. "You look even grumpier than usual." 

"I was just with Dr. Gottlieb," Mako says, inhaling deeply. That lightheaded, dizzy apprehension from earlier is fading quickly, helped along by the familiar presence of the brothers surrounding her. She swallows hard, trying to force back the taste of bile lingering in the back of her mouth and briefly considers asking them to speak a little louder to account for the ringing in her ears; instead, Mako finger-brushes her hair back and asks, "Have you met the new scientist?" 

Hu shakes his head. "The Marshal told us to stay clear of K-Sci for a while unless Gottlieb or Lightcap ask for us." 

"Hmm." 

"What's wrong?" 

"I think," Mako says thoughtfully, "that was a request from Dr. Gottlieb." 

Hu's brows draw in, his expression mostly surprised and a bit hurt. The Weis had been reading Gottlieb's work for years before they actually met the man, using his hypotheses and some base code to cobble together Crimson Typhoon's first iteration of its three-way Pons interface. "Did we piss him off?" 

"No, of course not." Mako sits, crossing her legs under her while the triplets follow suit. Before she can continue, the door hisses open behind her and Tendo strolls in, nervously adjusting his bowtie. 

"Yo," Jin says cheerfully, motioning him over. 

"What are you doing here?" Cheung asks, taking pains to sound welcoming, if curious. Tendo rarely visits the Kwoon. "We're almost done, if you two wanted lunch or something." 

Tendo gives Mako a polite nod before dropping onto the mat next to Jin, looking out of place in his suit. "I'm avoiding K-Sci, brother. Marshal's giving Geiszler a tour of LOCCENT." 

"What's going on in the labs today?" 

"You know how things get when an inland newbie joins up." Easygoing, good-natured Tendo grimaces, about the closest expression he ever gets to outright disgust. "This guy's... a little more extreme than usual." 

They've adjusted to crewmembers who've never learned to conserve food and supplies, visiting Rangers who've fed cafeteria food to their dog (Hu still has a grudge against Chuck Hansen that he's too polite to really act on; dogs are great, but their Dome's unrationed food supply is a finite luxury). "How do they get any worse?" Jin asks, the question entirely rhetorical. 

Mako cuts in bitterly, "He has an Onibaba tattoo." 

"And a Trespasser one. Reckoner too. Probably others. You boys know I like tattoos as much as the next guy, but you should hear the way he talks about 'em." 

"Sensei told me to find you three here when he saw me leaving the lab," Mako tells them, feeling her throat constrict around the words but cautiously watching the triplets' expressions grow agitated. The Marshal had known immediately, upon seeing her face, that she'd met the new scientist. He'd had his own matters to attend to, but Stacker's always had people to rely on in Hong Kong. 

The Weis have never given any sign of having lasting trauma from their numerous encounters with kaiju-- face-to-face in a Jaeger, or when their parents were killed in Shanghai, or when Reckoner made landfall in Hong Kong. Some people are more affected than others, Sensei used to tell her; besides, they had seen so much already that they simply had to learn to allow it all to slide off their backs. 

Sometimes Mako would hear Jin comment disbelievingly to his brothers whenever a special about their lives came up on TV: 'Was that really us?' 

( _Moderate dissociation from past experiences as a survival mechanism_ was the official evaluation from PPDC experts, nothing serious enough to take them out of service. Mako doesn't ask them about their past much-- not because she isn't curious, but because they'd always have to think long and hard before answering, as if they barely remembered. They don't like talking about it, either.) 

Still, the Weis know plenty of people who still have nightmares, stumbling to the Jaeger bay or LOCCENT with deep bruise-colored bags under their eyes after a sleepless night, engineers who have to leave the room whenever they'd start discussing kaiju in detail, mechanics who couldn't be in LOCCENT or in front of any of the hundreds of monitors in the dome during a drop. The brothers never really understood it (surely, horrific memories couldn't overshadow the joy of watching Crimson Typhoon slice a kaiju to bits?), but they'd learned to watch themselves. 

"Marshal sent me here too," Tendo says, expression grim. Not a lot of things take him back to 2014, kneeling on asphalt, Yeye heavy and unmoving in his arms. Not videos or photos or conversation-- but in the aftermath, moved to New York to stay with relatives, being poked and prodded by scientists gushing about the kaiju's _scientific potential_ , almost hopeful of another attack. That does it nicely. 

Cheung's halfway to his feet before Mako tugs him down by the back of his sweatpants, a quick pull on the waistband overbalancing him and toppling him ungracefully back to the mat. "Please," she says harshly, more command than request, "don't make trouble for the Marshal. The crew as well, we need everyone's cooperation." 

"Cooperation," Hu snarls, looking mutinous, "doesn't mean we sit here and accept--" 

"You have to. No one else has the same kind of expertise on kaiju." 

Jin picks up seamlessly, "Everyone else is too busy _trying not to die_." 

"Seriously," Tendo murmurs, slinging his arms over Jin and Hu's shoulders, practically holding them down, "the Marshal won't be happy if you did something to the new guy. Just endure it for now. Besides, we barely even have to interact with K-Sci." He fights back a grin, squeezing them against his side in gratitude. 

"But," Mako adds, "we appreciate that you are so willing to inflict violence on strangers for us." 

"Yeah, brothers. Don't do it, though." 

The triplets shift effortlessly into damage control mode, some remnant of their days with Liu-- back when they'd have to organize the movements of several dozen people at a time for mostly illegal purposes. " _Everyone_ in this dome's lost someone because of a kaiju," Cheung mutters, reaching into his pocket for his and his brothers' phones, then tossing them back to their respective owners. "Hong Kong's not that big." 

"So if we're supposed to avoid him," Jin comments lightly, "no one's going to tell Geiszler that if he flashes his ink in front of Taku, he'll get his face beaten in?" 

"We'll just make everyone with a," Hu makes a vague gesture toward the medical bay, "record avoid K-Sci." 

Cheung stands up, unhindered by Mako this time, and instinctively extends both hands to his brothers to haul them to their feet. "I texted the crew," he says, "Team Crimson Typhoon official meeting in the hangar at two. Lunch now?" 

"Lunch now," Tendo agrees, nudging Mako on the arm as they stand. "What's good today?" 

"Cherno Alpha's crew took over the kitchen," Mako informs him, sounding amused at the idea of a visiting Russian contingent commandeering the food. "They said it's been months since they had an unrationed meal." 

"Why does everyone do that?" Hu grumbles, shoving his hands into his pockets as he trudges toward the exit, brothers falling into step next to him. "Our food's not good enough or something?" 

"Not everyone's got an open port," Jin says cheerfully, a bit smug, "because no one else's got Crimson Typhoon." 

"Or us." 

"So vain," Mako sighs as Cheung drops back and slings his arms over her and Tendo's shoulders, grinning as he propels them forward.


End file.
